Developers pulled the plug on the Atlantic Coast Pipeline project last Sunday. Opponents celebrated a victory for the environment and proponents lamented the loss of potential jobs.
It’s always a sad day when West Virginians lose employment opportunities, but seeing the pipeline project go up in smoke brings home the reality of the kinds of jobs West Virginia has become dependent on: Transient, trade-oriented and fossil-fuel driven.
Historically, West Virginia’s economy has been built on industries that plunder our natural resources and then move along when those resources become scarce. Booming coal towns in the early 1900s are little more than ghost towns now. That’s the problem with building around a finite resource — when the resource runs out, so do the jobs.
Fracking and pipelines have injected money and jobs into local economies, but how long will that boost last? PolitiFact did the research and found that the oil and natural gas industry only brings in about 20,000 jobs to West Virginia, according to an U.S. Energy and Employment report. That total accounts for direct and indirect employment. Plus, anyone who lives near major fracking sites can tell you most of the natural gas workers are coming in with out-of-state license plates. The industries we’re bending over backwards to accommodate are bringing in people instead of hiring locally.
West Virginia has amazing trade schools, and we’re proud of our tradesmen. Heavy industries are great for them. But we also have three major universities and a bunch of colleges churning out highly educated professionals. And there’s nowhere for those professionals to go.
In the Mountain State, 23% of workers have low-wage jobs, according to a 2017 report, “State of Working West Virginia.” Low-wage industries are growing rapidly, while professional jobs are declining. Nationally, over 12% of college graduates work below-minimum-wage jobs. A DataUSA profile of our state shows that the most common jobs in West Virginia are drivers/sales workers, truck drivers and cashiers.
Instead of clinging to declining fossil-fuel and low-wage industries, We need to attract more sustainable jobs. West Virginians are bright and spirited and hard workers. We have so much potential. But instead of propping up coal, oil and gas, we need to invest in a tech-driven future, because that is where the world is going, and West Virginia is falling behind.
We need efficient broadband across the state. Internet access becomes hit or miss as soon as you leave city limits (and sometimes inside city limits, too). We need the infrastructure for professional industries. Even as we invest in technology and STEM, we need to create spaces for the arts and humanities to flourish. Success and prosperity can be found in the balance of progress and culture.
If we could focus on building our state up instead of constantly selling our state out to exploitative industries, we could lead the nation instead of always lagging behind.
Morgantown Area News
'Tuesday, November 5, 2024'
